The component gives you several ways of adding stations. Artist stations can be added from the context menu. Your personal stations can be added from the "File/Open Last.fm Radio Station" menu, as can custom stations. The component will also catch Last.fm URIs entered from the "File/Add location..." dialog or command line, but these don't create automatically refreshing playlists.

Thanks to those that answered my questions during development. As usual, all feedback is welcome!

Regarding the future of this componentThe component is still using the old Last.fm Radio API, which was due to be discontinued over half a year ago, and is therefore running on borrowed time. When the new radio API was released I went some way to updating, but hit some problems and then didn't have the time.

However the new radio API requires users to be subscribers in order to listen, and as I expect the continuing popularity of foo_lastfm_radio stems from the fact that you don't need to subscribe, it is unlikely that I'll update to the new API any time soon. This means that if and when the old radio API is deactivated, it will be RIP foo_lastfm_radio.

A note on Love/BanThis functionality is part of a separate API, and additionally requires a corresponding audioscrobbler submission (see http://www.last.fm/api/show?service=260). It therefore won't be implemented in foo_lastfm_radio. Sorry.

Changed in version 0.5.x:

0.5.7d: Removed limit on text length in custom station dialog.

0.5.7c: Can assign keyboard shortcuts to Last.fm Radio contextmenu items.

0.5.6: New technical info field "lastfm:imageURL". Use $info(lastfm:imageurl) to retrieve.

0.5.5: Removed 'fan' custom station as it only returns empty playlists.

0.5.5: New advanced preference: cache album art to a file.

0.5.4: Context menu for opening artist stations now uses %artist% rather than %album artist%. This was causing problems with various artist albums.

0.5.4: Small usability improvements to the Custom Station dialog.

0.5.3: Updated new advanced preference from 0.5.2 to also disable 'Playback Follows Cursor' setting if set.

0.5.2: No longer possible to add non-Last.fm tracks to Last.fm playlists. This includes tracks cut from Last.fm playlists. Prevents reordering playlist contents and potential problems with playlists not refreshing.

0.5.2: New advanced preference: Set playback order to 'Default' when playing Last.fm radio.

0.5.1: Fixed: Custom station dialog OK button would remain disabled when first selecting an item from history.

0.5.1: Adding lastfm:// URLs from the command-line or 'File/Add Location...' dialog creates automatically updating playlists. Note that adding from the command-line halts playback and clears your default or current playlist in the same way adding any other file does.

Option to reuse a single playlist for all stations.

Favourite stations: managed from the preferences page, accessed in the File/Last.fm Radio menu.

Changed in previous versions:

0.4.2: FIX: Using the close button in the custom station dialog doesn't return control to the main window.

0.4.2: FIX?: Rare crash on track selection/playback.

0.4.1: Playlists update silently.

0.4.1: No more obnoxious popups on expired tracks, or empty playlist retrievals.

0.4.1: FIX: On startup, sometimes two lots of tracks will be retrieved for a single playlist.

0.4.1: FIX: $if(%album%,then,else) always returns then, even if album tag is empty.

0.4: Album art support. (Specify a default image in the preferences page.)

0.4: Improved custom station dialog. Now remembers previous entries.

0.4: Last.fm links can be accessed from the context menu.

0.4: Improved error handling.

Fixed crash when attempting to write tags.

Fixed tags disappearing on playback.

Fixed non-ANSI characters not displaying correctly.

Improved auto-refresh playlist logic. Old tracks (tracks retrieved prior to the currently playing item) are removed from all playlists, which refresh when 3 tracks or less are remaining.

Fixed crash when selecting keyboard shortcuts preferences page.

Playlists are given friendlier names and can be renamed.

Fixed escaped characters in tags.

Note: Played tracks are not scrobbled. (Use foo_audioscrobbler with "Only submit tracks from the Media Library" disabled if you want this functionality.)Note 2: Users of foo_playback_custom (or other components which write tags to files during playback) should check "Only tracks in the media library update playback statistics" in that component's options to avoid problems with playback.